


Everything Carries Me To You

by PockySquirrel



Category: Kamen Rider Blade
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Series, These Boys Are Bad At Feelings, bench subversion, episode tag: Zi-O 30
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PockySquirrel/pseuds/PockySquirrel
Summary: Coda to Zi-O 30. After his world is upended a second time, Kenzaki seeks an anchor in the only other person who could possibly understand.
Relationships: Aikawa Hajime/Kenzaki Kazuma
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28
Collections: Another Toku Holiday Special (2019)





	Everything Carries Me To You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tothelight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothelight/gifts).



It would take a while, Hajime realized, to fully account for all the ways in which Another Blade had changed him.

The first glimpse of blood - his own blood, red - staining his fingertips had been startling. And the sudden abatement of Joker's power pressing against his mind, the constant compulsion to fight and destroy vanishing in an instant, left him feeling both relieved and strangely empty. But after he walked away from the battlefield, after the initial shock faded and he had a moment of solitude in which to process what had happened, he began to notice other, subtler things. His senses were changed. Dulled, perhaps, but not in a way that felt detrimental. Everything seemed to be, in some ephemeral way, softer. Maybe this was what the world looked like without the sharpness of a predator's vision. Or maybe this was what the world felt like to someone who truly belonged in it. 

Hajime picked out a nearby park bench as a place to sit and collect his thoughts. He looked down at his hands, flexed his fingers, absorbing the altered sensations of his body, the sights and sounds of the world around him. Contemplating it all. The laughter of children at the playground across the way. The way the wind rustled the leaves of the trees above him, casting dancing patterns of sunlight on the ground. A shadow fell across the path in front of him and he looked up, automatically, at its source. 

Kenzaki stood there with his hands stuffed in his pockets, fading bruises - blue, not green - on his face.

They locked eyes and waited for what had once been the inevitable. It didn't come. Hajime let out a slow breath and straightened his back, letting the tension that had flooded his body at Kenzaki's appearance start to ebb away. Kenzaki sat down next to him. No one spoke.

“This is weird,” Kenzaki said at last, meaning several things.

“Yes,” Hajime replied, agreeing to all of them.

Another long silence passed between them before Kenzaki spoke again.

“You know, it's funny. I've lost track of how many hours I've spent thinking about what I'd say to you if I ever had the chance. And now that I do, it's like all the words I had are just gone.”

Hajime's gaze flickered toward him uncertainly before settling somewhere near the horizon.

"When I thought about it, I was never able to come up with words that felt adequate,” he admitted. 

Kenzaki's eyebrows lifted in a moment of surprise, and then a slow smile spread across his face. He laughed, softly at first, before the sound built into something fuller and more genuine. His shoulders shook with it. Hajime looked back at him and frowned in confusion, but even though he found the response perplexing, he couldn't deny that it was good to see an expression of happiness on Kenzaki's face. 

"We're both so bad at this," Kenzaki explained, ineffectually and still chuckling. 

Hajime continued to present him with the same bemused expression until he collected himself. Kenzaki leaned back against the bench, catching his breath with a soft sigh. His gaze tracked the same scenery Hajime had been studying moments ago, and Hajime wondered if the world now looked as changed to Kenzaki as it did to him.

"So what have you been up to all this time?" Kenzaki asked. "Amane said you left Jacaranda."

Hajime hummed a soft affirmative and nodded. "I realized it had gotten to a point where neither of us could continue to grow if I stayed."

He studied Kenzaki's expression as he said it, half expecting it to show disapproval. In truth, he had never been certain that decision was a correct one. Kenzaki would be able to provide him clarity on that point. If his face showed judgment, he'd have his answer. But Kenzaki's peaceful expression did not waver.

"Nothing in the world can thrive without change," he said. 

Hajime thought about that. Thought about his own existence, his single unquestioned purpose, centuries in stasis, and how it had all been upended, due in no small part to the man who sat next to him.

"No, I suppose not," he agreed.

"What about since then?" Kenzaki pressed. "What are you doing with your life?"

"I take photos, mostly," Hajime replied, inwardly flinching at how insignificant that sounded out loud. "I traveled for a little while, took photos of nature, landscapes, different places. Now I do portraits. I think it's helped me understand the world. And understand people."

"Which is what you wanted, right?" 

Kenzaki turned toward him then, eyes bright and intent. Hajime felt pinned to the spot, unable to look away. 

"Are you happy?" he asked, the earnestness of the question masking, mostly, a note of underlying desperation.

No one had ever asked Hajime that question before, or at least not so directly. Not in a way that so clearly demanded his deepest honesty. For a moment, he was at a loss for words, questioning himself. Was he happy? Was he? He felt himself wilt inside as he realized the answer he'd have to give, realized he'd have to disappoint Kenzaki with it.

"No," he admitted. 

It was all he could do not to flinch as he saw the hope vanish from Kenzaki's face.

"I'm sorry," Kenzaki replied, in a tone more subdued than Hajime had ever heard him use.

"Don't be," Hajime was quick to answer. "You sacrificed so much for me. You gave up your own life so I could have one. I've spent these years living as a human, just like you asked me to. And I've learned so much. I have a good life, and I'm content with it."

"But you aren't happy. Why?"

"I've always felt there was something missing."

"Do you know what it is?"

"It's you."

Hajime's mouth twisted slightly as he said it; his brow furrowed as if he was just realizing it for the first time himself. Kenzaki, for his part, looked utterly stunned.

“It never sat right with me,” Hajime continued slowly, choosing his words with care as he continued to make sense of them. “Not being able to share any of what I’ve done with the person who made it possible.”

Kenzaki watched him as he spoke, and after, studying the details of his face. Hajime felt seen, and it would have made him profoundly uncomfortable, had it been anyone other than Kenzaki doing it. But Kenzaki had always had the singular capacity to open Hajime up and expose him, and it was somehow never bad that he did. 

"I want you to know I don't regret what I did," Kenzaki said. "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing. But… I'd be lying if I said I never missed you."

Hajime's chest tightened at the words and he wondered what else, and who else, Kenzaki might have missed during those lost years. He was used to isolating himself out of fear of his own power, until Kenzaki had forced him out of his solitude. And when Kenzaki disappeared for the sake of the world's safety, Hajime found he had in some strange way inherited the friends he had left behind. But had Kenzaki found any friends wherever it was he had gone? Were people kind to him? Or had he been alone for all of that time? How long had it been since he had experienced the type of closeness that seemed to anchor people to their humanity? How long since he had allowed anyone to touch him?

Hajime studied the tiredness in Kenzaki's eyes, the downward tilt of his head as he looked away, embarrassed by the open emotion of his confession. Probably too long, he decided, and closed the remaining distance between them.

A kiss - Hajime's first, though his time among humans had made him soundly familiar with the act - was a small, soft thing that nonetheless filled his senses so completely it verged on overwhelming. Kenzaki tensed and for a moment Hajime's heart dropped, fearing he had misjudged things and acted in error. But as if sensing his intention to withdraw, and before he had time to do so, Kenzaki's hand darted out to seize the front of his shirt, pulling him in closer, fingers curled tightly into the fabric as if pleading with him to stay.

Time seemed to stop until they parted.

The pink color that stained Kenzaki's cheeks was decisively, gratifyingly human; his smile faint but honest.

"You really have learned a lot about being a human."

"Not nearly enough," Hajime replied, breathlessly earnest.

Kenzaki's expression brightened. "Of course not. There's always more, isn't there? At least now we can figure it out together."

He stood and extended his hand. Hajime took it without hesitation, savoring the warmth of it as he got to his feet. The possibilities ahead of them seemed infinite now, and Hajime doubted there was enough space in a human lifetime to make up for everything they'd spent the past fifteen years missing. Nevertheless, he certainly planned to try.


End file.
